


Going Home

by orphan_account



Series: Works of a Drunkard [4]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War I, Character Death, Drunk Fic, Edith is unworldly as usual, Illegal love, Internalized Homophobia, Kinda, M/M, Memory Loss, One Shot, Phil forgets Dan, Survivor Guilt, i hope anyway, very sad, works of a drunkard, you will cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 05:36:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14230446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Captain Howell has been at the front in France for two years on and off. The horrors of trench warfare scarred his mind with images of disfigured bodies, limbs blown off, and missing facial features. But nothing could ever be as irreversibly damaging as when he returns to England to find his other half bed ridden with a missing ear and no recollection of how it came to be. In a peaceful country far away from the devastation of the war, how can Dan be in so much pain over a man who doesn't even know his name?





	Going Home

**Author's Note:**

> Okay yes I haven't updated my major fics for three and four months, sue me I deserve it. Uni is kicking my arse and I honestly thought I'd have heaps of time to write over half terms... but... well I don't :(  
> I wrote this while drunk, finished it while moderately sober. I won't be editing for spelling because you may as well know what I'm like.

“Can’t I at least see him?” Dan asked a nurse. He’d been told she had a clipboard with all the pateint’s bed numbers written down. He’d been waiting in the entrance hall of a convalescent home for nearly half an hour while the nurses and servants finished their lunch and prepared to tend to the wounded

It was a pitiful sight, this large opulent manor with its unnecessarily decorative vaulted ceilings extending whole yards above normal height. It was a large stately mansion not too far from London, soDan was able to visit once he’d been relieved from front line duty.

He’d be sent back to La Somme in a few days and he absolutely had to see Phil before he left. Dan had been a fairly fortunate captain, two years into the war and he was still breathing. That was more than he could say for majority of his friends and acquintences. PJ, Chris, they were killed at Amiens during an artillery attack. The loss stung, Dan watched his soldiers die regularly but they had been particularly close to him. He promised their parents when they were called up that he’d look out for them, take them under his wing. They all knew he could only do so much, and that if a bullet had a name on it, it would all be over and nothing could be said or done.

This seemed acceptable at the time when Dan explained it to PJ’s mother, but the terror of falling shells and whirring bullets was something else when they were launching themselves against the germans as if they were nothing but fodder.

The muddy trenches with icy cold trenchwater leaking into shoes and making socks go soggy felt so far away when Dan set foot back in England. The expensive silks the English ladies still wore, the nice food, it was all so far removed from the reality just fifty miles across from the Dover hills. The untouched grassy farmland and expanses around the country mansion gave no indication that Dan’s entire world would be again turned upside down once he was sent back to France, or what was left of the wretched country.

“I’m sorry, we’re very busy at the moment, Captain, that won’t be possible,” the nurse replied. She turned away to write something on her clipboard but Dan risked injury to his sore ribs by reaching out to grab her hand.

“Look, I’m supposed to go back to France tomorrow and to be honest I appreciate that you’re just doing your job… but you don’t know what the front line is like or what’s happening over there while you’re here just...” Dan closed his eyes and tried to block out the constant whirring in his head. It was of no use, the sounds of men screaming would plague him for the rest of his life. But worse than that, the silence that followed a shelling. He forced himself to come back to England by opening his eyes. He wasn’t in France, not anymore. This was the repreieve, not the battlefield.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I know. That’s all well and good but it still would be terribly-”

“Do you? Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to see my friend,” Dan said. He pushed his way past the nurse and ignored her grunt of disapproval as she stormed off.

In the drawing room, all the Victorian furniture had been moved out. No more chaise-longues, nor comfortable couches and roaring fires. The oil paintings that would have littered the duck blue French panelling were stripped from their positions too. Almost the entire room was taken up by crude hospital beds, all containing frail men.

Some smart ladies tended to them, even if just to provide conversation. Dan thought it looked pitiful, a lady degrading herself to such an act jus t to provide a dying man with some entertainment.

“Excuse me, I’m Captain Howell. I’m looking for an Officer Cadet Lester?” One of the ladies seemed to be simply observing te room, shocked by how overcrowded it was with men coughing and spluttering in their ill health.

“Yes, I think I may know the one. My name is Edith, by the way. I’m not much of a nurse, that post has fallen to my sister, but when I think about those poor men on the continent putting their lives on the line for their country… I simply had to put myself to some use.” She led Dan back out into the entrance hall and motion to a grand staircase in the middle.

“I respect that. I waited to be called up, honestly the idea of going to fight is terrifying but at the same time, I want to be useful.”

“Precisely, I was so sick of watching while others served a purpose. My sister once told me, as she was cleaning dried blood from a man’s leg mind you, that everyone has a skill. I just needed to find mine and use it. I think I’ve found it here, so of course if you need anything relating to non-medical care during your visit, I’m your man.” Dan smiled at her, the distinction between men and women, rich and poor, upper and lower, blurred in times of crisis. Everyone was either useful or they were not.

“Now, I must warn you, Mr Lester has sustained some considerably damage since returning from the front, and I’m afraid his condition may not improve. We’ve done everything within our power to make his last few days as comfortable, though he seems disoriented at best and… forgetful at worst. I wouldn’t want you to see anything that might upset-”

“That’s not unsual for Phil, so with all due respect, I’d like to see him either way.”

“Alright…” Edith swallowed and nodded, reining in her sadness by casting her head down as Dan followed her up the stairs to the private bedrooms on the second floor. She didn’t have the heart to tell him how forgetful the patient really was, and that the damage to his head had been so severe that he would be “coming home” soon.

She led him into a room with red painted walls and a spacious four poster bed. It seemed as though it were one of the family’s bedrooms before the war, now converted into a private space for soldiers to lie in peace away from the others.

In the bed was a man, his black hair unmistakable. He didn’t seem to register that anyone had walked in, but Dan knew it was Phil. The cuts and dried blood on his face didn’t fool him into thinking otherwise. Phil’s face had been ruined when a bullet sliced his ear and he fell backwards into the dirt of a trench on some barbed wire. It was a miracle the medics managed to clean him up for the journey back home.

Edith left the room when she saw Dan about to break, she closed the door behind her with a soft _click_ to give him some time alone with the man.

“Phil? Are you awake?” The room was completely silent, almost heavenly and removed from the world. Sunligt streamed through the windows and onto the bed where Phil’s body rested. He was breathing, his chest was moving. A wheeze escaped his lips every time he exhaled.

“Phil?” Dan moved closer to the bed, pulling up a chair to hold his hand. He had a smile on his face, as if he were unaware of the world and content about it. He was in a beautiful room, ate good food, and all that was expected of him was to relax in bed in soft cotton pyjamas. It sounded rather nice to Dan.

Dan reached over the bed to kiss Phil’s cheek and hug him close. “I’m so glad you’re alright, Edith told me that you were in a state but I think she was exaggerating. I’m going back to the front soon, I just had to see you… I thought maybe if I came here, I could go back knowing someone at home was thinking about me.”

Phil remained unmoving, when Dan kissed his cheek he simply let his head push against the pillow. When Dan hugged him, he simply let his bdy be pulled up from the mattress and float in the air for a while before he was put back down.

“Phil? Can you hear me?” The man was definitely still breathing and only then turned his head to face his visitor. Dan expected that he’d smile, or that he’d at least greet him with some familiarity. The bandage across the hole in his head where his ear used to be made the man look broken, his perfect face was damaged. The war tended to ruin good things, do bad things to people who didn’t deserve it.

Phil’s face remained stoic, Dan shook Phil’s body and the man yelped in pain. “Phil! Please, just say something…”

“Please-“ Dan immediately stopped when he hear dthe sound escape Phil’s lips. “Please, please, sir… put me back down… you’re not a nurse.”

“Oh, God, Phil… that’s not funny, you really had me fooled there for a second…” Dan found himself smiling, but Phil wasn’t smiling back at him.

“I’m sorry Sir, I don’t know what you’re saying.” Dan let himself sink back into his chair. He averted his eyes.

“Turn your left ear towards me. Here-“ Dan took a moment to rearrange himself so that Phil’s remaining ear would be on the same side of the bed as he was. “You don’t have to call me that, by the way. We’re in private, Dan is fine. You know me. I know you. We fought together, we… anyway, you don’t have to call me that here.”

“No sir, I can hear you just fine. I’m alright without my second ear, you only need one anyway.”

“Phil, please… I’ve always said you can just call me Dan.”

“But sir, I haven’t even introduced myself.” Dan looked up and his eyebrows knitted together.

“What?” Phil took a notebook from a bedside table out and reviewed some curly handwriting.

“Edith helped me write this out, I have a problem remembering things.” Dan scooted onto the bed and Phil shot him a strange look, as if he were uncomfortable. It was then that Dan noticed that Phil’s words ‘I have a problem remembering things’ were written several times on the page. Like a primary school student might write lines on a blackboard.

“Phil…”

“I have a problem remembering things,” he repeated. He continued to loo kdown at the page, his voice was monotone as he reviewe dthe facts. “My name is Philip Lester. I am an Officer Cadet in the British Army. I had an accident in France.”

“Wait, Phil please give me a moment to-“

“Sir, it’s Officer Cadet Lester.” Phil moved himself with great difficulty away from Dan. It was at that point that Dan swallowed and let himself off the bed back into his chair. He didn’t hold Phil’s hand. “I lost my ear, but that’s okay,” he continued to read. “I’m safe here. I like flowers and plants. I shouldn’t get out of bed to walk around the gardens, however much I might want to. My family sent me flowers so that I don’t have to. I must remember them whenever I look at them in their vase on the writing table. They love me very much. I’ll be alright in the end, I must focus on improving my health.”

Dan couldn’t bear to hear any more. Every word was pain stabbing into him. For at least two weeks he’d wondered what happened to Phil after Amiens. Now that he was in this room with the man, he honestly wished he could have continued to wonder.

“Oh Phil…” Dan buried his face into the crook of the man’s neck. Dan didn’t care if Phil didn’t remember any of the time they spent together at the front, he needed to hold him. “Phil, I don’t know if you can hear me, not with your ears, but really hear me. If you can, if any part of the man I love is still in there and listening, please, you have to know how much I care. I would have taken the bullet for you a hundred times, but I can’t.”

“That’s an odd thing to say. Sappy and very odd.” Dan retracted his head to look into Phil’s eyes, there was still no recognition in them, and nor would there ever be.

Edith opened the door and slid through the frame as quietly as she could, Dan stood up so she wouldn’t have seen the exchange between him and Phil. She’d gotten very good at moving quietly over the past year, making sure she didn’t wke sleeping officers, but it wasn’t enough for Dan’s sensitive hearing after what he’d been through.

“Captain Howell, was it?” He nodded at her, she could see that he was more broken now than when she’d left him. “I see you’ve attended to Mr Lester…”

“I know you told me not to expect… but this…” Edith didn’t usually allow emotions to overcome her, but she saw the tears welling up in Dan’s eyes and spilling out. She took his hand and sat him down by the window.

“I almost didn’t want you to know. The hospital wanted to register him into a sanatorium, but we argued that if he could be allowed to convalesce here, he could be at peace when the time came.”

Dan looked over at Phil, he was smiling as he read over his notes again. He looked at his vase of flowers every few minutes; Dan knew by then that his memory was fragmented enough to not recall having done the activity numerous times previously.

_At least he’s happy._

Edith prevailed on the managing sergeant, Thomas, to supply Dan with the necessary information on how to bring Phil to as much peace as possible. If the best guarantee of peace was Phil asking who he was every few moments, Dan could be settled himself. He sat beside the bed holding Phil’s hand and whispering sweet reassurance as his breathing slowed. As far as Dan could tell, the sergeant was kind. It was highly abnormal to hold another man’s hand, but Thomas only smiled sadly at it.

“You’re almost home, Phil. I’ve got you, I won’t let you go.”

When Phil’s chest stopped moving, the sun had nearly dipped below the horizon. Orange light from the sunset fell on Phil’s perfect face, scars and all. It had been a few minutes since Phil went home, and he didn’t need Dan there anymore. But he liked to hold on. It felt disloyal to let go now and allow his body to go cold. Dan tucked his arm back under the covers and made sure every inch of his body was inside the toasty warm bed.

Thomas came back into the room to find Dan silently crying by the window, punishing himself for letting go.

“Captain Howell, Dan… if I may…” Dan looked up at the man and the wrinkled distraught on his face made Thomas realise that the distinctions no longer mattered. “You must have loved him very much…”

Dan swallowed a lump in his throat and stopped his erratic breathing long enough to speak. “Go on, have a laugh. A Godless disgusting bugger like me crying over a man who didn’t even know who I was.”

“I’m not laughing.” Thomas approached Dan carefully and put his hand on his shoulder. “He knew, in the beginning anyway. We’re not like other men, you and I. But that doesn’t make us disgusting.” When Dan turned to accept Thomas’ embrace, he could see the other man had shed a tear of his own as well.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> There it is! Whoa I had a really hard time writing this... it's just so... sad. Anyway, if anyone has any cool ideas about correlations with other pop culture then please be keenly aware that I definitely don't want to be sued and such and such own the rights to such and such blah blah blah... plus I was drunk and it seemed like a good idea to steal characters from other fandoms at the time.
> 
> If you do spot the allusions then good on you! Thanks for reading x
> 
> Note I will not be fixing spelling mistakes... this is all raw drunk writing, essentially unedited. Really, I didn't even proof read it. Excuse me while I make another martini. Hope you enjoyed :)))))


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